The PurposeMall Life

Have you ever walked about in a mall? There are too many people there. Always crowded whenever time permits i.e. anytime when they are not working or sleeping.

I always wondered why was this. The irony here is that I am as bit a culprit as others.

Anyways, as to my wonderings, I started my own primary research by talking to people. The responses I received hovered around the same point but the initial reaction to my question varied a lot and were of a really wide spectrum - from credulous eye popping to philosophical naivety expectation.

But the reason that followed was simple - “This is the purpose of life”.

I didn’t follow it initially. But over multiple iterations with different people, I think I got sense of it. What they were basically trying to convey was that it was the Yang of the Yin-Yang of our existence. Yin being the work we do to earn a livelihood. One doesn’t make sense without the other. Both in a literal and philosophical sense. The money we earn working to develop the products/services that our employers market and sell is bound to be spent on products/services that other employers are marketing and selling. The principle with its cyclical approach is hard to refute especially when it’s accepted as a core tenet of life. Philosophically, it’s a bit more tedious. It’s borne out of an un-understood acceptance. They think of it as credit and debit but have evolved the unit from time to money thereby transforming the context of the saying “Living life to the fullest” from following your passion to buying more stuff. In the former case, credits are the seconds realized with every breath while debits are the same seconds utilized for living your life to the fullest. In the latter case, credit is the money earned in lieu of our time and debit is the money spent making up for that time via luxuries (or simply looking at them) including luxuries that reduce our workload (the so called “innovations” of our time).

At first I thought that people had got it wrong between the literal and philosophical. But over time I think I have understood the nuancial difference between the two. It’s in the approach employed. Cyclical is more practical while credit-debit balance is more stoical. Practical is literal and stoical is philosophical.

A parting word on the philosophical reason. What people don’t realize is that in trying to compensate for time via luxuries they have become a part of vicious cycle. The more time they spend working, higher the luxury (in terms of reducing workload) is required which then creates more work which then creates a higher requirement which then……

Be as it may, I think I have understood the reason. It’s simply that people have anointed it as the “purpose” of their lives. “Life” being a working life.

Bollocks… Complete Bollocks if you ask me.